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Alterations in the gut microbiome in patients with esophageal carcinoma in response to esophagectomy and neoadjuvant treatment

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Abstract

Purpose

Analyzing the gut microbiome is essential for planning treatment strategies to manage esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. This study aimed to characterize the gut microbiome of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and to identify alterations in its composition during treatment.

Methods

We observed alterations in the gut microbiome in 21 consecutive patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma at five different time points, from neoadjuvant treatment to postoperative surgery. Ten healthy individuals were used as a non-cancer control group. Fecal samples were collected and analyzed using 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid sequencing.

Results

Before treatment, participants with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma had different alpha and beta diversity in comparison to healthy controls. The number of Streptococcus, a facultative anaerobic bacterium, was significantly higher, whereas that of Faecalibacterium, an obligate anaerobic bacterium, was significantly lower. Both alpha and beta diversity remained unchanged during neoadjuvant treatment, but the alterations were pronounced after surgery. The increase in the relative abundance of Streptococcus and the decrease in that of Faecalibacterium also tended to be more pronounced after surgery.

Conclusions

The gut microbiome in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is altered with surgical intervention.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the participants. We would also like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for editing the English language of this manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI [Grant Number JP20K09035].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Hirofumi Hasuda, Hiroya Matsuoka, Yasue Kimura, Eiji Oki & Tomoharu Yoshizumi

  2. Department of Surgery and Endoscopy, Oral Medicine Research Center, Fukuoka Dental College, 2-15-1 Tamura, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka, 814-0193, Japan

    Tetsuo Ikeda

  3. R&D Center, Biofermin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Hyogo, Japan

    Yutaka Makizaki, Haruka Yokota, Yoshiki Tanaka & Hiroshi Ohno

  4. Department of Biostatistics, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Yamaguchi, Japan

    Mototsugu Shimokawa

Authors
  1. Hirofumi Hasuda
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  2. Tetsuo Ikeda
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  3. Yutaka Makizaki
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  4. Haruka Yokota
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  11. Tomoharu Yoshizumi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. HH: collected data and samples and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; YM, HY, YT, and HO: analyzed the gut microbiome data; MS: contributed intellectual inputs, mainly for statistics; HM: collected data and samples; YK: contributed intellectual inputs, mainly for treatment; TI, EO, and TY: supervised the entire study. All authors participated in writing the manuscript and/or critically revising the content. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tetsuo Ikeda.

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest in association with the present study.

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Hasuda, H., Ikeda, T., Makizaki, Y. et al. Alterations in the gut microbiome in patients with esophageal carcinoma in response to esophagectomy and neoadjuvant treatment. Surg Today 53, 663–674 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-022-02607-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-022-02607-3

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